This week's prompt for #52Ancestors is "Address With a Story". I can't think of any of my ancestors who had an address with a story. They were either farmers or coal miners. Their stories didn't lie with their addresses but were found in their occupations and daily lives.
The farmer ancestors lived out in the country. They all had RFD (Rural Free Delivery) or RR (rural route) numbers when the postal service started using those. They did not live in areas where farms had names, so there wasn't much to distinguish one location from another. If the mailman delivered mail to their farm, he would have been familiar enough with the area to easily find it. But early on, their mail was just held at the post office for pick up whenever they happened to get into town.
My coal mining ancestors lived in small towns, often company-owned, and they moved a lot. When my coal-mining ancestors were back in County Durham, England, their addresses were as simple as "Chester Moor".
Even in my own life, we moved a fair amount. I was born in Chicago, and there, it's not the addresses that you talk about - it's the neighborhood. I was born in Englewood. We moved to the Pullman/Roseland area, then out of the city, first to Dolton, then South Holland, and then to Oak Forest. In college, I moved back to the city. First into the Near West Side/Garfield Park area, then the Humboldt Park/Logan Square area, and finally the Austin area. The last move was to Minnesota, where I've remained for longer than I care to mention!!
None of these ancestors had any special addresses, and none of these addresses had a story!
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This Week's #52Ancestors prompt is Address With a Story
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